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Only some RAM "usable"?

Started by ASFTSN, April 10, 2018, 01:38:41 PM

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ASFTSN

Hello intelligent CAB people that aren't shit at knowing about computers.

My Windows 7 32bit Pentium 2.20 ghz laptop, now getting on for...ooohhh about 8 years old says the following under System:

Installed Memory (RAM) 8.00GB (2.93 Usable)

What does this mean and how do I fix it?

I upgraded from 4 to 8 GB a few years back, but it's never seemed to make a ton of difference.  Photoshop has started telling me there isn't enough RAM free too.

I chose to partition the drive when I first got the machine which I now regret, so I've got C: with about 3.27GB free of 40, and D: with about 194GB free of 240GB.  Dunno if that is relevant.

Thank you!

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I think 32bit processors/versions of Windows can only use up to 4GB of RAM. I don't know why yours would be limited to 2.93GB, unless RAM is affected by formatting the same way hard disk space is.

ASFTSN

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 10, 2018, 01:42:20 PM
I think 32bit processors/versions of Windows can only use up to 4GB of RAM.

Well, if that's true I am an eedjit that wasted my money a few years ago.  Oh well.

buzby

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 10, 2018, 01:42:20 PM
I think 32bit processors/versions of Windows can only use up to 4GB of RAM. I don't know why yours would be limited to 2.93GB, unless RAM is affected by formatting the same way hard disk space is.
Correct. It's becuase 32-bit memory addesses limit you to a maximum address space of 4GB. There are some hacked versions of the kernel memory manager out there (based on a patch MS issued for Win 2K Server to access over 4GB)  but they aren't very reliable and usually cause problems with drivers that weren't written to be safe with memory addresses longer than 32 bits (Intel graphics and network drivers have big problems with it IIRC).

The 2.93GB limit is because it's a laptop. They share the system RAM for things like the video interface, sound hardware etc. so you always only end up with around 2.9-3.2gb accessible to user programs on 32-bit Windows. Unfortunately even if it's capable of being upgraded to 8GB or more, the shared RAM for the IO hardware still has to be mapped into the bottom 4GB of address space by the BIOS so 32-bit OSes can access it.

If you want to access the whole 8GB of RAM, upgrade to Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.


biggytitbo

Just don't do what I did and foolishly upgrade to 32 exabytes, only half of which my computer can use!

canadagoose

Quote from: buzby on April 10, 2018, 02:07:41 PM
If you want to access the whole 8GB of RAM, upgrade to Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.
Yes, do this. I realise my addendum isn't a very helpful one, but I just wanted to reiterate that it's a good idea, because I was in the same boat with my old laptop from 2010, which for some reason came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit (urgh). I don't know why manufacturers pre-installed 32-bit versions of OSes on 64-bit capable processors at the time.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: canadagoose on April 10, 2018, 09:39:56 PM
Yes, do this. I realise my addendum isn't a very helpful one, but I just wanted to reiterate that it's a good idea, because I was in the same boat with my old laptop from 2010, which for some reason came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit (urgh). I don't know why manufacturers pre-installed 32-bit versions of OSes on 64-bit capable processors at the time.

Probably because there weren't any 64 bit drivers for other bits of hardware.

Stability was definitely an issue in vista (and the 64 bit version of xp) and hastily written drivers would probably exacerbate that and all.

falafel

64 bit Windows won't help if your CPU is 32 bit, but if it's only 8 years old I would be quite surprised if it was. Do you know the exact CPU, or just the model of your laptop?

falafel

Mind you, it won't install either, which would be your first clue, but why waste the money in the first place?

canadagoose

Quote from: falafel on April 10, 2018, 10:31:21 PM
64 bit Windows won't help if your CPU is 32 bit, but if it's only 8 years old I would be quite surprised if it was. Do you know the exact CPU, or just the model of your laptop?
A Pentium from 2009 or 2010 should definitely be 64-bit. It'd be good to know which processor it was, though.

buzby

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 10, 2018, 09:52:17 PM
Probably because there weren't any 64 bit drivers for other bits of hardware.

Stability was definitely an issue in vista (and the 64 bit version of xp) and hastily written drivers would probably exacerbate that and all.
Windows 7 is where MS introduced driver signatures (which was mandatory for the 64-bit kernel version), and the peripheral manufacturers took time to produce updated signed versions of their drivers, particularly for the 64-bit version (and in some cases didn't bother for products that there coming to the end of their lives), The 32-bit version of Windows 7 was quite a bit cheaper too, so a lot of lower-end laptops were shipped with it pre-installed.

Quote from: canadagoose on April 10, 2018, 11:16:27 PM
A Pentium from 2009 or 2010 should definitely be 64-bit. It'd be good to know which processor it was, though.
All Intel desktop, mobile and Celeron procecessors since 2006 (Celeron D, Pentium D and Core 2 Merom) have had x86-64 support. The Atom range was still using 32-bit cores until the later Diamondville 2xx/3xx single/dual core range in 2008 and the Pinewood range in 2010.

All AMD processors since the K8 Opteron family in 2003  have had x86-64 support, having been the originator of the x86-64 standard (which Intel were later arm-twisted into adopting by MS). Intel was hoping their IA-64 Itanium architecture (co-developed with HP to replace their Alpha processors) was going to become the 64-bit PC standard, but it was late, performed poorly in it's early iterations and was largely ignored by the industry outside of a specific niche high-end server market (Intel ended up having to create the Xeon x86-64 family to compete against AMD in the low and mid range server market)



Sebastian Cobb

It was a good time for pc gaming when AMD were kicking intel's arse at a fraction of the cost.

Consignia

All the cool dudes knew Cyrix was where it was at.